most** hp printers don’t ship with the hard-core third-party ink/toner block. that’s in the firmware updates.
never update the firmware of an hp printer if you use, or think you might want to use some day, third-party consumables or refills.
if you ‘subscribe’ to ink, you’re fucked, as that service requires automatic firmware updates be enabled.
**some do now, those should be labeled as such on the box–‘must use hp ink for life of printer’ or some bullshit.
I don’t know anyone who would accept an HP printer even as a gift. If I got one, I would recreate that scene from “Office Space” and bust it up with a sledgehammer.
Don’t destroy it, I’m glad a perfectly working one got trashed. I recently found a small office B/W LaserJet MFP from 2014 next to an e-waste bin with no obvious damage. I was glad this was a pre-Instant-Ink model, as signing up to the service would permanently remove the otherwise legally mandated ability to use aftermarket supplies. I carried the heavy thing home and disassembled it just enough to wipe the condensation from the previous night’s rain off the scanner glass. I factory-reset it and it turned on without errors but printed with terrible streaks despite claiming 80% toner left. Turning the cartridge’s drum manually still produced the streaks, so I bought a different one for 10 % of HP’s price (twice as cheap ones were available too from less reputable brands), and it works perfectly. There is only one warning per aftermarket cartridge installation, the rest can be disabled. Unfortunately, it always advertises HP paper when it runs out but I will never be giving money to these scumbags. I use it via Ethernet (it has no Wi-Fi) and disabled its internet access with a firewall rule. My roommates do a lot of printing on our Epson inkjet EcoTank and this one is way faster and more capable (but B/W).
I just stopped using my printer. I do have to print often, but it’s not worth it. I’d rather pay the nearest general store to print my stuff. Dirt cheap rates and I don’t have to maintain anything. Just pay and print
I just print everything at work.
HP: Hell’s Printers
Horrible Products applies just as well today as it did in 2002.
Their enterprise server hardware is pretty nice, but they did spin that off into its own subsidiary.
HPE Greenlake is actually a pretty nice service (or it used to be). They drop the hardware in your data center, but you only pay for the resources you use, and every few years they upgrade the hardware for you. Basically like an on-prem AWS.
Yeah don’t care fuck HP. I got cold called by a HP VAR and I was NOPE, HP is too anti customer to work with period
I’m sorry but “hardware drop” and HP in one sentence reminds me them sending underloaded pallets around. Man I was a big fan of Compaq until HP (now +E) came along.
Nice one! I was also thinking Homicidal Perpetrator
That kinda crap shouldn’t be on a commercial printer. I think y’all got a home printer and called it good.
That’s the opposite of how it should be. Corporations are the ones that are actually going to want the ink subscription. Corporations are happy to blow money on anything other than wages.
Consumers are the ones that need to save every penny they can. The consumer grade printers should be the ones getting the “crappy” customer service with no firmware updates. The commercial version should be the one shoving ink down their throats.
This is the reason why I started to block Internet access for all devices that don’t need it for their normal operation. I don’t trust the „disable updates“ function at all.
I see the error. Don’t choose HP printers. HP is an acronym for Hates Printers.
I dont think this is limited to printers though… I bought a nice hp convertible laptop for uni. Now the pen tips that came with it are used up and the only way to get new ones is to buy 110 tips for about 100€ (which are very hard to get too) or to buy a new pen for 40€. I tried contacting hp support where I first had to fight through a “chat bot” (basically a fancy way to navigate through their faq) to finally be told that my warranty is voided for 2 months now and if I wanted to contact hp support I might have to pay fees on their hotline … Printers are worse for sure though but I will never in my life again buy any product made by HP.
Edit: to be clear 100 tips for over 100€ is insane and you can basically only get them from aliexpress and they are not even sold in the official hp shop.
Helvetin Paska
Has Poncho
Will Travel
Hates People
They hate printers even more and their printers are a special pain in the ass.
I work in IT, printers are already the most hated devices in this field. But HP is by far the worst.
Me too, and an illogically large amount of our work revolves around fixing the HP printers for our staff
When i worked IT my first task was to fix a printer, convinced my boss i had no education or experience with printers. Did not have to deal with printers while i worked there.
“Hates people”
How do I short HP and do I need many monies to do it? Hopefully the hammer of capitalism will fall upon them soon for their evil ways.
Any decade now
That’s the fun part, technically you don’t need money to make that first bet with short/long positions. You just have to ensure that your bet was correct.
Or that you have enough to cover the call
Hopefully the hammer of capitalism will fall upon them soon for their evil ways.
It did, capitalism happens to rewards evil.
Go Brother, go Epson.
HP adieu!
I second brother, mines been running strong for almost 10 years
epson ecotank ftw!
yes, they have a page counter that bricks the printer, but you can reset it with sketchy software and a 10€ key.
they have a page counter that bricks the printer
They have what? Does the printer stop working after a set amount of pages printed or what does this mean?
yup, i don’t know how they do it for the newer models, but older ecotank models stop printing after 18,000 pages and show a warning about the purge tank being full.
you can clean the purge tank yourself and reset the counter with a key. there are plenty of tutorials on youtube.
afaik, epson doesn’t even intend for the tank to be cleaned. at least not by the customer, otherwise it would be a dismissable message. the keys are probably meant to be used by epson themselves but are being leaked by someone.
Newer versions should have a replacable waste tank, but the tank does have a chip with serial number.
The commercial grade ecotanks do in fact have a replaceable purge tank, and it’s very reasonably priced. It’s just the consumer ones that haven’t.
How very “eco” of them. Thanks for the explanation, I’m never going to buy anything from Epson ever again (not that I was planning to, but…)
If you don’t update firmware, people may use a security hole to snoop on you, so let us install this firmware update that lets us snoop on you
Why does HP print plugin need to send it to some server when both my phone and printer are on the same fucking network. When the ink is out, I am getting an Epson Inktank
I have a twenty year old laser printer. It has no internet connection and does what it’s bloody well told, just like any printer should.
No cyan? No problem.
Telemetry from my printer? Absolutely fucking not.
… and a gun beside it in case it makes unexpected noises.
Reporting telemetry is crucial in enterprise environments where you need to report the print counts monthly. Are you using an enterprise printer at home by chance?
only thing the telemetry is used in this printer is nice graphs on the app, but the same can be done locally from the embedded web server at the printer ip address
enterprise device management and reporting unknown quantities of data back to hp are two different things.
this bit about “reporting unknown quantities of data back to hp” let me remember a “cool” feature of the printer. HP takes back the cartridges for free, even sends back the recycling company at their expense, but then the fine print says:
The HP cartridges used with this product contain a memory chip that assists in the operation of the product.
In addition, this memory chip collects a limited set of information about the usage of the product, which might include the following: the date when the cartridge was first installed, the date when the cartridge was last used, the number of pages printed using the cartridge, the page coverage, the printing modes used, any printing errors that might have occurred, and the product model. This information helps HP design future products to meet our customers’ printing needs.
HP collects a sampling of the memory chips from cartridges returned to HP’s free return and recycling program (HP Planet Partners: www.hp.com/recycle) .
The memory chips from this sampling are read and studied in order to improve future HP products. HP partners who assist in recycling this cartridge might have access to this data, as well.
nice data exfiltration program!
We threw a crappy HP printer off the roof one time. We will do it again.
